For The Possibilities I Bled And Everything We Left behind (2012)

The most significant change to a female’s life is pregnancy. A woman suffers physical changes: her body swells and grows and can produce things that were not there before. When these changes occur they are irreversible. The stomach never sits quite right again. The breasts will never return to the same shape. Hair follicles and skin structure… Everything changes.

The emotional changes are more subtle. With each pregnancy the woman expels a part of her. Into each foetus is pushed hopes, dreams and ambitions. Whether the pregnancy comes to full term or not the changes are made.

This series depicts the emotional trauma of a terminated pregnancy after the termination of a relationship. Logically, the procedure is straight forward. comparatively little pain and only a few hours. Abortion is an ethical grey area as we associate it with death but become confused when that death comes before a birth. However, perhaps the idea that it is not the death of the cells that we mourn, but the death of the possibilities.

Children are a legacy. They are our continuation and we see ourselves and those before us live through the genetic story. Our blood carries with it our combined histories and stories. This is why they are so precious. There is already enough sadness in the death of a relationship, to later find one is pregnant would be heartbreaking. The epilogue of the relationship struggling on genetically in the womb of the female and then suffering the social pressures which lead the woman to bring an end to that story.

Blood carries our possibilities and that is the same blood that we bleed and that our children carry in their veins.